


Sacrament

by ambiguously



Category: Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Darth Maul Lives, Darth Maul Needs a Hug, Extra Treat, Gen, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:48:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27074497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously
Summary: Maul finds Obi-Wan in the desert on Tatooine. Obi-Wan brings him home.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 41
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	Sacrament

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Carmarthen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmarthen/gifts).



Living alone in a desert gives one a great deal of free time in which to contemplate the past, revisit those memories of long ago events, and arrange them into one's mind: on this side, his own many mistakes; on this one, the mistakes of others he might have prevented. Some good memories too, obviously, but even those are gilded with truths he didn't know then, and events that would follow to render them bittersweet.

Having thus spent these many years thinking about the topic, Obi-Wan can say this is the seventeenth strangest day of his life.

This desert is freezing at night. Ezra found that out yesterday, before Obi-Wan sent him back to where he came from, hopefully preventing him from making a few mistakes of his own. He remembers that age, and the fumbling fears and desires his master had taught him to control. Impetuousness has always been a keystone of seventeen, and Ezra's led Maul right to Obi-Wan. It's been years since he last saw the mad, sad creature, spied in the holo Ahsoka sent from Mandalore informing him of her mission's success. Those intervening years have not been kind.

Maul's face is thin, drawn, and full of torment. His gaze wavers, glancing to Obi-Wan, and dropping to the cup clutched in his hands. He shivers under the blanket Obi-Wan has provided for him, silently wrapping him in its rough spun warmth before he placed Maul into the other chair at his table then fixed the tea.

Maul came here to kill him. Obi-Wan knows this. He sips from his own cup, though he hasn't tasted the flavor of this chalky, bitter tea in almost as many years as they've been parted. The heat is good, and the liturgy of tea-making soothes him, and now he has a guest he can serve. The last step of the ritual is finally completed. They have so many between them. Maul came here to kill him, because it is his own ritual, the way he communes with the divinity within himself. Obi-Wan exists, and Maul must follow and attempt to destroy him. He followed Ezra here to complete his ritual.

Instead, he broke down weeping in the desert, his plans cast to the winds.

Obi-Wan cannot help but feel for such a pathetic creature, especially this one. They are bound to one another in ways he could not hope to express to a seventeen year old padawan. Ezra will believe he and Maul fought, and may believe Maul is dead now. Perhaps the wounded soul that he was is extinguished, drowned in the first tears he's let himself shed in decades. Perhaps he'll try to kill Obi-Wan in the morning.

"You can stay here with me," he says, and Maul shudders deeper into the blanket. "There is no danger to you here that you do not bring yourself."

There's a short laugh. "That's danger enough."

"We have both survived too much to carry our deaths with us now."

Maul sets him with a shocked, nearly humorous gaze. "You think we have survived?" He extends his arm, embracing Obi-Wan's simple home, the night outside, the desert beyond. "Sidious killed us both long ago. This isn't life, Kenobi. All we have are our deaths."

Obi-Wan sits back in his own chair. He reaches for his pipe, another ritual. Once he was part of the teeming company of Jedi in the Great Temple, holding to the ways they'd kept for millennia. Now he has his tea, and his pipe, and the freezing night outside his walls. And he has this Zabrak man sitting sullenly in his spare chair, the one Obi-Wan has kept against all reason. He never has visitors and all his friends are lost. What does that make Maul to him now, sitting across from him, broken and tired?

The options are surprisingly few.

"Then you may stay here with me for as long as you choose, or until we find our deaths together. I'm afraid we won't have to search very hard."

Maul bows his head and closes his eyes, accepting the offer. Tears still drip down his face. After a while, Obi-Wan sees he has fallen into sleep. He takes the cup from Maul's unprotesting hands, and settles the blanket better around his shoulders to keep him warm. He places a gentle hand against Maul's face, and doesn't pull away as Maul trembles into the touch. Not for the first time, Obi-Wan wonders what would have become of him had he been treated with kindness and care through his life. He forgave Maul long ago for the wounds he'd given Obi-Wan's heart. Nothing remains now save compassion.

It is too late to give him a full lifetime of tenderness. It is not too late to offer it for the rest of whatever lives they have.

"Rest well. Dream of better days than we have seen."


End file.
